New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-05-18
I1BOR'S ADVANCE.

WHY ia 1t that earnest clergymen like Father
huntington, and able politicians like Mr.. Hew-
lit, whey they have opportunity to speak the
truth where it will reach those who need 1t, do
not venture to tell wOrkingmen In this
country that the poverty of to-day Ia richer
than the wealth of 1900 years agof The wants
of men have changed. Daily comforts which
are now found by the score in the home of the
poorest yage-earner of to-day could not be
purchased 1900 years ago by the richest man
IN Jerusalem, nor procured by Herod with all
his power The poverty then common can
not be found now anywhere in this land. But
the wants of men have expanded more than
their means of satisfying those wants, so that
those who now have moro to enjoy than many
rich men could command few centuries ago
are nevertheless less contente1, and find their
wants less nearly satisfied, than the beggar at
the gate when Christ said The poor ye have
always with you"
Poverty is relative. The man who has
learned to live within his income, be that in
come less than dollar day, is richer than the
man whose habitual wants call for moro than
he earns though his earnings reach thousands
yearly. 1t Is pity that this bottom fact of all
discussions about ppy erty Is so carefully
shirked by men who speak to wage-earners.
The habitual concealment of this vital fact
in all social problems works fatal harm, be-
cause it leads men to believe that they are
ground down. into poverty by some power
outside of themselves. Whether they suffer
any Injustice or not, the power which fixes
their habtual wants is that which In the end
determines whether they suffer from poverty
e III. -. 4
to forget that their actual condition Is infinitely
better and higher than that of men who per-
formed similar services in the past. 1t con-
stantly blinds them 10 the truth that the con-
dtions of modern civilization do actually con-
sist with steady and rapid advance in the
wages of labor, in tho circumstances and sur
roundings of the thrifty wage-earner and in
the habitual wants Of the laborer and bis home.
This change in the habitual wants of labor
could not have occurred, it is plain, had not
corresponding change been effected in the GUS
tomary earnings of labor. The best authority
10 Great Britain establishes the fact that the
average wages of workingmen in that country
have advanced.50 per cent within as many
years in purchasing power, and Mr.. Gladstone,
In his eloquent review of Tennyson's SNew
Locksley Hall" says, Upon the whole among
the results of the last half century to them
are, that they work fewer hours; that for these
reduced hours they receive Increased wages
that with those increased wages they purchase
at diminished rates almost every article, except
tobacco and spirits, of which the price can be
affected by the act of the legislature" There is
no intelligent man who does not know that the
condition of woIkngmen in this country is far
better than in Great Britain, and that it has
changed for the better even more there than in
any other country, 1t is the concealment of
this vital facts concealment so persistent that
1t almost amounts to deliberate deninl-that
breeds so much dissent, and lights the fires OF
disorder 80 often. In the very land whore labor